


❊ A Daughter’s Promise ❊

by Mythstaken



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-03
Updated: 2020-12-03
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:35:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27853502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mythstaken/pseuds/Mythstaken
Summary: "I was about to go break my sister’s heart."An inside look at when Buffy had to go tell her sister about how the one person they had left was gone. From Buffy's POV.
Relationships: Buffy Summers & Dawn Summers, Buffy Summers/Dawn Summers, Buffy Summers/Dawn Summers/Joyce Summers
Kudos: 2





	❊ A Daughter’s Promise ❊

◇─◇──◇────◇────◇────◇────◇────◇─────◇──◇─◇

I was about to go break my sister’s heart. 

I remembered the day my parents brought her home, a tiny, yellow bundle that would change the rest of our lives.

I had been anxious. I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect. Mommy and daddy had said they were going to bring the new baby home from the hospital this morning. While waiting, I had drawn the new baby a picture of us playing together in her new room. I had put on my favourite sunflower dress, hoping the baby would like it. Sunflowers were pretty, just like the baby would be. Mommy had told me that I was going to have to share things now and I hadn’t exactly known what that meant. Would that mean less time with my parents? Would mommy love the new baby more than me? It was an entire kaleidoscope of feelings blurring into one another, but one emotion overtook it all. Anticipation. 

I had been excited to see the baby, nervous. Would the baby… would the baby like me?

Little feet scurried to the door the moment my parents stepped through the door, eyes set on the yellow heap that mom was carefully cradling in her arms as she lowered her to me, whispering, “Buffy, this is Dawn.”

Dawn.

Eyes filled with wonder at the small looking baby, fingers looking so pink and pudgy, everything about her was so fragile and delicate. She reminded me of my baby dolls. Every feeling of anticipation and nervousness dissipating and turning into something much warmer.

“I could be the one to look after her sometimes, if you need a helper.” Hopefulness ebbing into words, a sense of responsibility being born as I looked at the yellow bundle that was my sister. She was mine now to protect. “Mom, can I take care of her?”

* * *

I was about to go break my sister’s heart.

I had walked through the hallways of this school before, having dropped and picked Dawn up frequently. Somehow, the hallways seemed to run longer today, heart in my throat. I felt small, yet, tall at the same time. 

The secretary had told me that Dawn was in her art class right now, giving me her words of condolence and sympathy because she had been alerted to the reason for my visit through words I was not sure had even left my mouth in proper sentences. They sounded foreign, not quite right, a truth with bitterness.

How was I supposed to tell my sister… when I wasn’t sure I could understand it myself. Believe it myself, even though I had been the one to find mom.

My body felt completely warm, almost as if it were blistering hot, skin sheen with sweat, yet I felt a shiver go down my spine and catch me in a chill. Fingers rubbed at my sides, but I wasn’t exactly sure if I was trying to warm myself up or try to take away the heat. The sweep of nausea was strong, but I couldn’t let it take over me, not right now.

I had to be strong for Dawn. It was my job, now more than ever.

Feet came to a halt just before her art class, surrounded by a large, encasing window. Through the glass, I could see my sister, sitting at an easel, with her long, dark hair that I often joked about being the odd one in the family of blondes. She was talking to her partner. Her world was so simple right now. 

I was about to cause an earthquake she wouldn’t be able to come back from, a natural disaster where nothing would be rebuilt.

I saw her profile, the smile of an innocent girl as she made a small stroke against her easel, paper marred with charcoal. 

How could I do this to her? How could I ruin her childhood? 

I felt anchored to the ground, watching her, trying to swallow down the sandpaper texture that took to my throat. After what I told her, nothing would be the same. It already wasn’t. I could feel myself, and I was not at an equilibrium. I had thought about a dozen possible ways to tell her about mom on the way over, but was there ever really a way to say it? Was there any good way to tell her that the person we always thought of as being there… was, suddenly, not there any longer? 

Between the fight of immortality, it was mortality that had struck.

Ragged breath, I approached her classroom, any type of expression that would give me away lacking along features, my voice solid, “Dawn… I have to talk to you.”

I could see her carefree nature ebb away, her smile becoming flatter as she tries to read me, but I keep a strong will.

“Can’t it wait? I’m in the middle of class.”

It’s as if she knows. As if she, too, wants to hold onto any shred of normalcy. This was too cruel, because I knew just too well, the desire for normal among everything that was not.

“I know. Please come with me.”

I hope that she hears it, the silent plea in my voice. Fingers are digging into my sides, as if they are trying to hold down a scream lodged into my throat, words echoing in my mind.

She’s just a kid, she’s just a kid, she’s just a kid.

* * *

We had been cherry flavored jello-d out from the hospital, and I was just about done finished visiting mom for the day, sitting at the edge of her bed, trying not to inhale the hospital-y smell that came with the pale purple blanket (yes, hospitals had a smell, a very sad, dessicatey smell.)

Hospitals had never been a place I liked to come to, not since I was little, memories of my cousin filled the echoes of what this place meant to me.

I had just finished making fun of Dawn (who was at home under Willow and Tara supervision, doing her homework) when mom looked at me with an expression I wasn’t able to quite read, asking, “Dawn... she's not mine is she?”

I felt my body freeze. It was a truth that had not been said out loud, one I had been keeping. My mom could read me well and I knew there was no point in lying.

“No.”

“She's... she does belong to us though.” Joyce stated, a pucker between her brow. The draw Dawn had on all of us was something unexplainable, but true. It was something I couldn’t put my finger on, but I knew that she was much as my sister as one could be. She was, for all intensive purposes, me. The monks had made that clear. 

I simply nodded, “Yes, she does.”

Mom went on, her voice almost as if it were in a haze, “And she's important... to the world, precious. As precious as you are to me…” Suddenly, mom’s face masked with a seriousness, her gaze intently holding mine and I couldn’t look away, even though I could foresee where this conversation was going and I did not want it to go there, “Then we have to take care of her. Buffy, promise me, if anything happens, if I don't come through this-”

“Mom.” I felt my heart sink, hating when she spoke like this. To even consider a world where it was not mom, Dawn and I...

“No, listen to me. No matter what she is, she still feels like my daughter. I have to know that you'll take care of her, that you'll keep her safe, that you'll love her like I love you.”

I could feel something swell in my throat, something I was unable to swallow. Eyes glassy, as I give my mother a swift nod, not trusting my voice not to break for a second before I take a breath in.

“I promise.” I breathed out.

It was the same promise I had made years ago, when I had first laid eyes on the newborn.

* * *

Dawn seems to register something being off, she was always a bright kid. She puts away the charcoal mechanically and follows me out the door, asking, in confusion, “I thought mom was picking me up?”

A wrench to my inside as I stare straight ahead, eyes hollow. I cannot afford to slip now. Not now. Damn it, not right now.

“What’s going on? Something’s going on.” Her curiosity is clear, voice adamant.

I play with my ring finger, voice soft, “Let’s go outside--”

“No! Tell me what’s going on.” She was my sister, through and through, right down from the tenaciousness and freckled skin. I can hear the slight panic picking up in her words and my mind is going a thousand miles per hour. How did I even start…

“It’s… bad news.”

In an instant, I see the posture of her body close off from me, arms crossing along her chest as if she is preparing herself for the blow. I see the flicker in her eyes start to die, and I know she is thinking of a million different things but… none of them are as bad as what I am about to tell her. “What is it? What happened?”

“It’s bad. Please can we-”

“Where’s mom?” Dawn cuts me off, and her voice is trembling, almost defensive. The girl with the big bambi eyes that I always envied is looking everywhere but at me and it is like she almost knows, but she doesn’t want to even entertain the idea, go anywhere near the realm of the possibility of…

“Mom had an accident.” I can feel my voice shaking, even with those few words and I catch myself. “Or something went wrong from the tumor.”

“Is she okay?” My little sister asks, tears already filling her eyes. “Is she… but she’s okay... “

I flinch. 

I wished I could tell her that it was okay. I wished I could tell her that it had just been an accident and that mom waiting for us back at home. That I had got there in time.

I wished, I wished…

My sister continues, in her haze, almost as if she is trying to reason with me and herself, “It’s serious, but, but--”

“Dawn,” My voice is delicate, fragile, not wanting to already cut through my sister who was already being sliced at the seams. I need her to listen to me.

“Mom didn’t make it…” I start to stay, watching the shift in my sister as clear as day.

This was the moment I had broken her.

The one she wouldn’t come back from. 

“I called the ambulance as soon as I found her, but there…” I was fidgeting with my sleeves, throat swelling as I saw my sister’s face crumble, her hand going to her mouth as a sound of protesting ‘No’ escapes, shaking her head repeatedly as if she could will this news away. 

I had broken her and now I was just stepping on the pieces.

“... there was nothing they could do. They said it was internal bleeding, that it was a complication from the--”

I watch my sister stiffen, hand going to her chest as she takes a step back from me, arm flinging out in protest. “No! No, it’s not true.”

There is anger in her voice now, desperation, “You’re lying. She’s fine!” Her face is going red, tears streaming down her cheeks and suddenly, it is as if her knees give way, falling to the floor in a heap of her cries.

For a moment, all I can do is watch her. Watch her crumble because of my doing. Watch her crumble because the most important person to us was gone. Watch her crumble, because our mother was no longer.

If I was there a fraction of a moment sooner, then maybe...

“You’re lying. I know you’re lying.” Broken words are repeated through sobs as she covers her face, and I follow slowly, sinking onto my knees, my eyes not once leaving her rattling body.

My entire body is still, ringing hollow, watching my sister shatter before me.

I feel my eyes sting with tears, fingers curl into my palms and cut into skin to stop myself from making a sound. I had selfishly taken too much, done too much, I had to be the one to bear her pain. It was the least I could do after breaking her heart. I want to touch her, I want to console her, but I feel as though if I touch her, her pieces will crumble underneath me like porcelain. 

Head bowing as I watch my sister break into fragments that I wasn’t sure either of us would be able to pick up without bleeding some more, whispering, “I’m so sorry, Dawnie…”

Sorry was such a pale comparison in the grand scheme of things.

“ I have to know that you'll take care of her, that you'll keep her safe, that you'll love her like I love you.”

I didn’t know how I was going to replace the warmth, resilience or love of a mother, but it was a promise I intended to keep.


End file.
